NSR’s Land Mobile via Satellite, 8th Edition, released today, finds that satcom land mobile markets continue to have a strong future, with over 750,000 new in-service units coming over the next decade, across 9 distinct applications. Many of these units will trend towards higher ARPU levels with enhanced revenue prospects, despite a near-term COVID-19 revenue dip. Connected vehicles play a major role in long term growth, as broadband overtakes narrowband demand across all land mobile applications.
In the near-term, COVID-19 is having, and will have, a more muted impact on land mobile revenues with enterprise users, especially when compared with aeronautical and maritime mobility markets. Nonetheless, the greater uptake of satellite service by consumers in the last few years, especially for eco-tourism purposes, has resulted in a greater revenue decline in 2020 and 2021. However, the upside is that device de-activations remained at similar levels to 2019, so there will not be a “COVID-19 plunge” across land mobile, providing much-needed near-term optimism for the market.
“Longer-term, NSR sees accelerated revenue growth driven by a fundamental shift from narrowband applications and towards broadband as a share of revenues” states Alan Crisp, NSR senior analyst and report author. “Greater COTP usage, and the growth of connected vehicle markets, all point to additional life being injected into land mobile. Inmarsat Land Xpress, Iridium Certus, LEO-HTS constellations and more all contribute to new revenue opportunities over MSS narrowband data and voice usage.”
While the past has been dominated by lower ARPU L-band devices, flat panel antenna products will soon hit the market and longer-term will begin generating outsized revenues for mobility applications, especially for first responders type vehicles. However, widespread consumer usage is still not expected, due to higher costs, and lack of key and compelling applications for consumer end-users. Nonetheless, a high-growth scenario for connected cars is also forecasted for a set of conditions, where satellite capacity and FPAs can proliferate in the consumer vehicle space.
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